That time a little Sambuca put me off omelettes for life

Recipe for One Messy Night Out

From the Kitchen of Ella (unfortunately)

1/2 an omelette, relatively pleasant going down the way, not so hot coming back up. Say goodbye to omelettes for life.

3/4 of a bottle of Sambuca, preferably own brand. No mixer, not even shots, just long determined glugs.

1 nitwit 19-year-old, ready to take one for the team of college stereotypes

Toss it back, and, well, I can’t actually remember the rest

This one time in university I got so drunk off Sambuca that after cornering a man in a nightclub and screeching Italian at him, my friends decided to wrestle me in a taxi and take me home.

Well, me and the birthday girl. She flailed her entire upper body out the taxi window the whole route home. But it was her birthday after all. I didn’t have an excuse for sitting head between my legs and flopping from one side of the taxi to the other with each turn of the road.

Once home, they dumped me inside where my flatmates found me and became convinced that I’d been slipped something. So they decided to call emergency services.

I have since lectured them that being drunk doesn’t necessarily mean I need the paramedics. It’s fine to just let me roam around my room knocking things off the walls or texting limericks to all my exes. Not that I know any limericks, when I’m sober anyway..

So the paramedics arrive with their big fancy ambulance ready to do some stomach pumping and I’m leaning over a toilet spewing my tits off and it actually isn’t that embarrassing because I can’t remember any of it, except I do remember a nice man leaning over the toilet with me asking me about my brothers. He was asking their names and what they did.

“Nicholas,” I happily slurred in between heaving tan chunks. “He’s an archeologist.”

I thought and thought and thought. (And heaved and heaved and heaved.)

“I don’t know,” I answered. And despite my state of delirious inebriation, that really was the truest answer I could have possibly given.

You see, Christopher was 23 at the time. And it’s hard to know what anyone does when they’re 23. I know this now, being 23 myself.

And I’m fairly certain that if I wasn’t the youngest and stupidest, and there was in fact a younger and stupider sibling in the family. Said younger and stupider would spill their guts after 12 jello shots too many and a paramedic would shine a light into their eyes and ask family secrets and they would tell the paramedic that they really didn’t know what the fuck it was that I did.

And I would have to drink to that, cause I couldn’t answer that question either.

After my boozy run in with the medics — Mr. Nice (potentially cute) Paramedic and crew had packed up their bags and left, advising me to sleep it off — my flatmates supposedly traded hours keeping watch over me while I slept, to ensure that I didn’t choke on my own sick. Considerate of them.

The two men of the flat also apparently bathed me, which I find odd and have so many questions about. But hey, not really in a place to complain.

Besides, I’m pretty sure one of them had never seen a bra (nonetheless a fanny) before, so this was probably very educational. And I’ve got an inkling that my karma’s pretty crap on account of I’m not a registered organ donor and am terrified of giving blood. So I figured I gotta do my bit in society where I can.

And that was that, on account of I went to school in Scotland and didn’t have to pay an ambulance fee or medical bill, or any other sort of joy of joys. Because that’s what taxes are for. Drunken university students. Precisely.

The only real consequence was that this girl from student services kept trying to talk to me about my feelings. She was concerned with my wellbeing. Apparently.

But I did a pretty good job of always being out whenever she came to call, so I never had to sit her down and spell it out that sometimes a bottle of Sambuca means nothing more than a bottle of Sambuca.

That, and it’s put me off omelettes for life thanks to my pre-gaming omelette dinner — a little rubbery the second time around.

Testing limits, spewing chunks and nice (potentially cute) paramedics, that’s what being 19 is about. As for 23, I haven’t sorted that one out yet. I’ll keep you posted.